24 24 Definitely a good influence

After getting some food inside of little James we were finally done with the essentials, which basically just means that now we can just shop for whatever we want.

I insisted we do some more clothes shopping first, because other than the jacket and winterwear, little James doesn't actually have any clothes other than what he was wearing when I found him.

"Do you particularly care what kind of clothes you get?" I ask as we walk into some store or other that isn't too crowded.

"Nope! Can we just grab the first things we see? I wanna check out the arcade already!" I let out a snort at his bluntness and give him a shrug.

"Aight then, how 'bout this, you go grab yourself three changes of clothes, all in the same size, and meet me by the changing rooms so we can make sure they actually fit, meanwhile I'll quickly go grab something else, 'kay?"

"Kay!" He half shouts before literally taking off running down the isle, making me smile with his enthusiasm.

I'm glad he is as fun as I hoped he would be. Fun and useful, could I ask for anything more?

Anyway, I shouldn't stand around.

With that in mind, I head over to where the hair dye is and grab a few boxes of brown dye. That done, I make my way to the changing rooms.

Though, calling them 'rooms' is a bit of a stretch, since they are more like cubicles really.

There is already a woman there sitting on the benches when I arrive so I speak up when I approach.

"Hey there, mind if I take a seat?" I ask, startling the woman in front of me. When she turns around I am able to get a good look at her.

Brown eyes, blonde hair and a face that's more cute than sexy with a smattering of freckles. I never really understood what the 'girl next door' look was supposed to mean, but looking at this woman I feel like I kind of understand.

Pretty enough to get your attention when you are near each other, but not pretty enough that you would remember her once you move on. Then again, maybe I am misinterpreting that phrase.

"Oh, no, no I don't mind at all." She says, scooting over a little on the bench even though there was already more than enough room for me.

We sit in silence for a second or two before I get bored and realise she isn't going to start conversation.

"So, who are you waiting for?" I ask, making her look at me in confusion.

"What?"

"Well, you're just sitting here, and one of those curtains", I nod to the changing cubicles, "is closed, so I assume you're waiting for someone too?"

The time it took for me to finish speaking seems to have been enough for her to gather her bearings enough to recognise that she is in a conversation now, as her response is a lot more casual this time.

"Yeah, I'm waiting for my daughter, she has an armful of clothes in there with her and honestly I'm not expecting her to be out for another twenty minutes."

I smile at the playful lament in her tone and sigh sympathetically.

"Ahhh, the joys of teenage girls I assume?"

"Yea, she just turned fifteen recently. She's going out to some party for christmas tomorrow and has suddenly decided that nothing in her wardrobe is good enough, hence the sudden shopping trip."

The way her shoulder slump despondently gets a chuckle out of me that makes her harumph jokingly in return.

"What about you", she asks, "who are you waiting for?" As if to answer for me, the moment I open my mouth to respond, little James comes barrelling down the isle, jumping to a stop in front of me and throwing a pile of clothes at my face.

The pile hits my face with a soft 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱 before falling down to my lap to reveal the dry look on my face.

"You're supposed to try them on first dumbass, not throw them at me."

I say, taking a shirt and a pair of pants from the pile and throwing them back before gesturing to the open cubicles.

He gets the idea heads over, still running, and closes the curtain behind him.

"I take it that that little one is yours then?" The lady who's name I still don't know asks. Unfortunately for her, I'm still bored.

"Not exactly, he's actually my uncle." I lie.

The look of confusion is expected but still amusing, not that I let that show. Instead, I keep talking with a straight face, my tone light and casual, as if discussing the weather.

"Yeah, see my dad got my mum preggos when he was only 13. She was 16, it was quite the scandal at the time. At the same time, my dad's mom, my grandma, she gave birth to my dad when she was 15, then she had my uncle when she was 41, making him about 12 years younger than me despite being my dad's brother."

Looking at the bafflement on the woman's face, I almost break out laughing.

"O-oh. Uh, that's, huh. I don't really know what to say to that to be honest."

Right as I'm about to respond and embellish the story to include incest and be even more confusing, little James bursts through the curtain with such force that he brings it down with a clang with him as he collapses to the ground.

Well, at least the new clothes fit well enough.

They didn't impede his fall to the ground one bit. "They fit! Can we go to the arcade now!"

With a wry smile on my lips I get to my feet with little James and gather up all his new clothe in my arms, balancing the hair dye on top of it.

"Sure, you little tyke. Let's go pay for this, then we can check out the arcade." I say as I start walking away, little James hot on my heel.

"Later!" I yell back to the woman, "good luck with your daughter!"

With that, our journey to the arcade begins.

Unfortunately, we are on the opposite side of the mall from the arcade, so it takes a while to walk there. As we are walking, and after little James has had a moment for his excitement to die down a little, he turns to me from my side and asks me a solemn question.

"So, what 𝘥𝘰 you plan on doing anyway?" I only raise my eyebrow at his question, prompting him to elaborate.

"I mean, you said I could join you, but what are you even going to be doing, and what do I have to do?"

He really is mature for his age. Or all eight year olds are this mature and I've simply never interacted with one before.

Still, I've already decided to be completely, mostly, honest with mini James. Mostly because I don't want to experience that cliché where someone, for example, doesn't tell their kid about how they are some prophesised kid, but then they obviously end up finding out anyway and proceed to run away, thus making the prophecy self-fulfilling.

Obviously the situation isn't exactly the same, but the point lies that honesty really is the best policy. It's amazing how far a little communication can go.

"Well, the first thing on my agenda is to finish off your family. There's one guy left right now, but he's my priority. Other than that, I am planning on founding an organisation of sorts, more of a club really. That is what I am inviting you to join.

"You see, my organisation shall be called The Clowns, and when I say it's more of a club, that's because there won't be a leader or anything like that, nor will we even have to spend much time together, it's more like an alliance of mutual beneficence between likeminded individuals."

After I finish speaking, I see mini James looking at me with his face all scrunched up. Right, that might have been too many big words for him. However before I can continue explaining it, he interrupts me.

"..I think I get it. It's basically like making friends, right?"

I mean, that kind of takes the mystery out of it, but he's not really wrong.

"I guess. It's not as cool when you put it like that though." He ignores my pouting as he puts his chin in his hand and visibly ponders.

"So, if it's like a group of friends, then what's the uh, the link that connects everyone? And why Clowns?" He asks.

I smile down at him, a full smile showing too many teeth in a way that would probably disconcert most people.

He isn't even phased.

"Because~ little James", I practically 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘳 at him, "clowns always get the last laugh."

After that, we both lapse into a comfortable silence for a while, both of us lost in our own minds. Indeed, I plan on making an organisation.

Really, it's more to be a web of connections, so that people like myself, who want to make this world a little bit more enjoyable, people like me who understand the truth of life, can have more resources available to them if they ever have anything fun planned.

Not to mention, like mini James said, we could then enjoy each members plans together, like one big happy group of psychopaths.

Really, my idea is a lot like the Slaughterhouse Nine, I've come to realise. Only, I want my group to be far less short sighted.

Because while a slaughter every now and then might be fun, facing against an entire city, it's also repetitive and even more than that, if you just keep killing everyone, then eventually there won't be any more fun to be had.

After all, it's the people that make the fun, so if there's less people then there's less fun. It's simple maths really.

Little James' voice drags me back out of my thoughts to the earlier conversation.

"So what your saying is that I can join the Clowns and that I can then just do whatever I want? And you'll help me with it?"

"Close but not quite. What I'm saying is that you can join, following which you will have no obligation to anything, you can do what you want. But if you need help for something, then you can ask the group, and if it sounds fun enough, someone might be willing to help you out."

The conversation once more falls to silence as mini James contemplates things.

Eventually however, we do reach the arcade as planned and I give little James a handful of dollar bills and tell him to go wild, following sedately after him as none of the games really interest me.

That is how we spent the rest of the afternoon. Mini James running around from one machine to another, burning through all of my, literally, blood money.

We got a few disapproving looks from people who were probably thinking that I was an irresponsible parent... which to be fair isn't too far from the truth.

But eventually mini James tired himself out at around mid evening time and we decided to call it quits for the day.

At least for mini James anyway.

Because the day is far from over for me, as after we made it back to the house and put our stuff away, well, I put our stuff away, little James just went to bed, I got myself ready for a long night.

The first thing I did was dye my hair, since it takes time to set so I figured I'd do it first. Then I went to the living room and sat myself down on the floor where there is plenty of space, following which I focused inwards. Time for some experimenting.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

You may have noticed that webnovel is fucking up formatting, if you are late to the upload though then it doesn't matter because I have hopefully already fixed it :)

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